Changes

Grandpa said
Here’s some change
go buy yourself
some chocolate

Grandma said
as usual
Oh my
you’ve changed
so much!
Again!

I took
all of these
changes
in stride
like a champ

Grandma’s
trembling
wet kiss
however
inevitable
after the
oh my remark
was harder
to take

– James Steerforth

Written in response to One Single Impression‘s request for change:

As we worked together to create this blog to pick up where One Deep Breath has left off, change seemed an obvious choice for the first prompt. This blog reflects change as much it reflects a desire for continuity — especially the continuation of blogger relationships in the online poetry community. Focusing on the interests of a group and creating an inviting atmosphere is a change from the solo act of a personal blog.

As we embrace the challenges that come with change we also lean on old certainties. It’s wonderful to transform a potential loss as an opportunity for growth. Thanks for being a part of the change!

Addendum / fact and fiction
In reality, it was my father who usually gave me change to buy chocolate, and often it took coaxing to get him to do it. But it was a nice routine at the factory where he worked as an engineer: I took the money and went upstairs to where one of the employees had a little lockable wooden chest with a glass pane in the door that held two kinds of Tobler chocolate bars (a brand long extinct, only surviving in the form of the Toblerone) – milk and hazelnut – for sale to the other employees.
In reality, it was my oldest aunt on my father’s side whose trembling wet kisses I feared.
In reality, it was sort of a standard statement among some members of my family to tell someone else how much they had changed. Or worse, to tell them something like, “Oh my, you look awful today!”